A Social Query Framework

In recent times, there has been a huge increase in Social-networking based activities on the Internet. Users have started using the Internet, not only for collaborating with each other but also taken on a new role of being Information prosumers (producers + consumers). The standardization of the really simple syndication (RSS) platform, which allows for a cross-domain sharing of content (user generated or otherwise) has helped by making information access easier, giving rise to online phenomena such as Blogging, Vlogging and Podcasting. Users have increased their reach into the world of Internet users, leading to a huge growth in their (mostly online) Social Network. Yet, such a network is being primarily used for sharing user-generated content or by the web-sites for generating advertisement revenues. More ever, existing technologies only facilitate a User to consume that, which is pushed by others. There are no easy or standardized mechanisms for a user, to leverage this social base for pulling out specific information from their social network. In this paper, we argue that due to the lack of a standard cross-domain query mechanisms, users are not able to take full advantage in the collective intelligence of their social community. We propose a generic Social Query Framework, which allows a user to propagate application-specific queries within their social network and receive appropriate answers.